


Riding South

by Trell (orphan_account)



Series: Ravens and Dragons [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Asexual Castiel, Asexual Character, Flying, Friendship/Love, M/M, Nightmares, Past Relationship(s), Politics, Ravens and Dragons, Royalty, Travel, Unrequited Love, Wings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-26
Updated: 2013-05-26
Packaged: 2017-12-12 23:51:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/817491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/Trell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><a href="http://askravensanddragons.tumblr.com/">Ravens & Dragons AU.</a> As the ravens travel south with the human delegation and their summit approaches, Dean and Castiel walk circles 'round each other, and Balthazar is always there for Castiel.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Riding South

Balthazar drops onto the log next to him and scoots close, tucking his head in against Castiel’s shoulder. The campsite is quiet under the night sky, people clustered close together around their fires. Castiel sits alone, is watching his fire, chin in his hand, distracted; his left hand comes up to run his fingers through Balthazar’s hair, automatic. Ravens are tactile by nature, and Castiel more so than most.

Balthazar thinks this is a result of his lonely childhood, but he’s never said so. Cassie would only puff up and insist that he was well-cared for; whatever Castiel may be, prone to blaming others he isn’t.

“Pining over the human king, Cassie?” Balthazar probes—teases, really—and shifts one of his wings so that it doesn’t jut awkwardly under Castiel’s own.

Castiel’s answer is bland. “Worrying about how our negotiations will play out, actually.” Teasing Castiel is Balthazar’s favorite sport, but it falls flat when he’s deep in thought, as now.

“It’ll be like all negotiations are,” Balthazar says. Castiel’s fingers curl absentmindedly in his hair. “You’ll all sit locked up in a stuffy, horrible room together and bicker for hours, and in the end you’ll reach some kind of compromise that no one will be entirely happy with but which’ll be more than anyone expected at the start.”

A glance upward is met with slitted blues: Balthazar thinks he detects a flicker of amusement in Castiel’s hooded gaze. “I am so glad,” Castiel says, utterly deadpan, “that you have such great confidence in my capacity as a negotiator.”

There’s humor, there, but Balthazar hears the unspoken self-doubt, too.

“Cassie,” he says. “You negotiated peace with the ice giants. I think you can handle a swarm of _humans_.”

Castiel’s chest shakes against him, then—silent laughter, Balthazar realizes. Castiel’s wings quiver against his in echo. “You still talk about them as though they’re somehow lesser,” Castiel remarks. “I would have thought you to have amended your opinion, having met them.”

“Oh, I’ll grant you the pretty one’s all right,” Balthazar quips, feeling Castiel’s hand twitch in his hair in response to the jibe, “but his goons? Cassie, they’re the more accurate sample of the whole.”

Castiel sighs, rather more mirthlessly, now. “I know,” he says. “I know. Benny—one of his men, one of the ones he and his second-in-command seem to approve of—accosted me today with warnings of how we will be treated.” A pause. Castiel sits motionless, and Balthazar thinks he’s hardly breathing. Then: “I wonder that Dean has not come to brief me himself, yet.”

“He’s probably afraid you’ll get your royal feathers ruffled,” Balthazar tells him. “Turn right around and go home the first time someone flings something rotten.”

“I sincerely hope it does not come to that,” Castiel says, shivering slightly against him. “Imagine, a riot in their city streets—it would not end well for us.” Balthazar can only murmur in agreement: should things reach such a stage, he suspects they would not go away unharmed.

Tarred and feathered. Ha.

“It won’t,” he assures Castiel, though he doesn’t really believe it himself. It’s true enough that they will likely be poorly received, regardless of how well Castiel handles the talks that come after: they will almost certainly be approached with disdain, perhaps even with hostility.

Castiel’s fingers coarse through Balthazar’s hair again, the touch gentle, and Balthazar finds himself mumbling—muffled in part against the cloth of Castiel’s tunic—”I miss you, you know.”

Castiel stills again. There’s a silence, broken only by the cracking of the bark in the fire, and Balthazar is struck with the fear that Castiel might simply stand and walk away, offended.

Instead, Castiel says, barely audible, “And I you.”

Balthazar laughs against his shoulder, then. “My tent is always open, you know,” he jokes. Half-jokes.

Doesn’t joke at all, really, but Cassie’s usually slow on the uptake, with these things.

He peers upward and finds himself rewarded with a small, rueful smile. “No,” Castiel says, not unkindly, “no, I think not.” Perhaps not so slow, after all.

Or perhaps Balthazar is simply that transparent. He always has been, where Cassie was involved.

“Worth a try,” he says, lightly. Inside him, something aches; but it’s an old hurt, one he’s already nursed and buried.

“Mm,” Castiel hums, and returns to watching the fire spew sparks into the sky, embers dancing away into the night on the breeze.

Balthazar watches him, instead.

Watches his chieftain, his leader, his friend; Castiel’s skin is cast orange by the firelight, features accented by glinting jewelry, and Balthazar traces with his gaze the blue facial markings that he once traced with his fingertips more times than he could count.

They don’t say anything more—just sit together in companionable silence, then—and Balthazar wonders anew, well aware of the irony, which one of them is really the one doing the pining.

* * *

Later that night—Balthazar doesn't know when, without sight of the moon in the sky to gauge—Castiel shows up in his tent.

It's only because Balthazar's a light sleeper that he is aware of the arrival at all. The rustle of the tent flap has him lifting his head blearily off his bedroll's pillow, and then he's just alert enough to see a dark shape stepping inside.

Balthazar knows the form of Castiel in the nighttime, though, and so he does not reach for the knife under his pillow when Castiel approaches (wings pressed close against his back to avoid snagging on the tent) in the shadows and sits without preamble on the ground beside him.

And, because Balthazar is, of course, the very soul of wit and depravity even when woken in the middle of the night, he says, "Come to take me up on that offer after all, hmm?"

This time it really is a joke—it is not like Castiel to change his mind so easily, nor at such a time—but some small, sleepy part of him hopes, anyway.

"No," Castiel says, his voice rougher than usual, and that's when Balthazar registers the way his breath shudders, and knows exactly why Castiel has come.

"Cassie," he says, quietly, and pushes himself to his elbows, pulling himself closer. His heart clenches at the scene's familiarity; his mind conjures up memories of all the times before when Castiel came to his bed, shaking and blanched, to find safe harbor in Balthazar's arms.

Far more times than that Castiel woke beside him with a cry, hands grasping blindly for the sheets—for Balthazar's wrist—for anything, desperately seeking anchor in the waking world.

It has been a long time since Castiel has come to Balthazar like this, but Balthazar has not forgotten what it is that can shake Castiel so utterly.

With a grunt, Balthazar sits up beside him. Castiel has curled up into a tight ball, knees against his chest, shaky breaths muffled against his knees: and Balthazar presses a soothing hand between Cas's shoulderblades, under his wings. "Cassie," he says again, gently, "tell me?"

He can feel Castiel's tremors under his hand, now, the way he tries to restrain himself but only shakes all the more, teeth clicking against each other. Balthazar rubs circles against his back and waits: murmurs meaningless assurances in an attempt to ease his breathing and tensed muscles.

Finally, though his breathing is still hitching and off, Castiel whispers, "It was Michael," and Balthazar understands.

"Another nightmare?" he asks, and it's less question than statement. Castiel's head jerks in a nod against his knees.

"It's all right," Balthazar murmurs, scoots in front of Castiel so he can gently loosen Castiel's grip on himself, pry the fingers of his left hand away from where they dig his nails into the tattooed flesh of his right arm. "You're here, now. Not then, Cassie, never again." He repeats the action with Castiel's other hand, clasps both in his own.

Castiel has to look up, then, has to raise his head. It's too dark to make out his expression, and Balthazar wonders if Castiel’s eyes would be wet if Balthazar brought up his fingers to brush against his lashes. "Oh, darling," Balthazar breathes, and holds his hands all the tighter when Castiel flinches violently. "You're here," he repeats.

After a while, Castiel's ragged breathing slows; the shaking Balthazar feels through his hands settles.

"I'm sorry," Castiel whispers, and Balthazar's heart breaks at the words.

"Darling, there's nothing to be sorry about," he tells him; pulls him close, then, wraps him in his arms like he can shield Castiel from everything in the world, or at least from these nightmares, as he wishes he could.

Funny, that Castiel comes to him, when it is all of them that look to Castiel to defend them; when it is he that is their hope, their beacon in a time of danger and approaching war. At any other time, it would be Balthazar who would come to Castiel for guidance.

Were Balthazar a more selfish man, he thinks he would covet his status as Castiel's closest confidant, Rachel in her official capacity aside. As it is, he only thinks it achingly sad; that Castiel suffers like this when no one is there to see, that he has not had Balthazar's comfort in this for so long, faced it alone because he could not bear to come to him.

He strokes Castiel's hair, reassuring, and lets Castiel rest against him, face buried against the nook of his neck and shoulder, Castiel’s wings still quivering. "Nothing to be sorry about at all," Balthazar says, in case saying it again helps it stick.

Castiel makes a miserable noise against his shoulder and manages, unsteadily, "I don't deserve you."

"But you get me, anyway," Balthazar says, and smiles at him when Castiel looks up at him, eyes reduced to glints of silver in the black. "You've had me from the start, and now you can't possibly get rid of me. I'm like a burr stuck on the inside of your boot. Utterly intractable."

"I sent you away," Castiel starts, "I pushed you away—"

"How much I care about you," Balthazar cuts him off, knowing exactly where this is going to go, "is not contingent on whether or not you are willing to sleep with me, darling. As much as I would have liked that to have been the case."

"Balthazar," Castiel says, and he sounds so exhausted, through fatigue and out the other side, past bitterness and into bleakness. "I murdered my brother. I do not deserve somebody like you to protect me from the consequences."

"Cosmic scales be damned," Balthazar bites out, abruptly vehement. "You're a good man, Cassie—a good leader, a good friend. Michael was a madman and a monster."

"He was my brother," Castiel grates, "and so it is I who became the monster, in the act of striking him down."

Balthazar just holds him tighter in response, like he might transfer his conviction in Castiel's goodness through intensity of touch alone.

He wishes that he could kiss him, then; wishes he could press his certainties about Castiel's character against his mouth, breathe them into his very being, trace them over every inch of his skin.

Alas, echo of the past though this scene might be, he does not think Castiel would allow that: worse, if he did, Balthazar could not live with himself to have swayed him when he is so vulnerable, so laid bare by his guilt.

There are a lot of things that Balthazar is willing to do to get what he wants, but hurting Cassie is not one of them.

He presses his kisses into Castiel's hair instead, for lack of better options, and says, "I could not love a monster, darling. Never a monster."

Castiel shudders harshly at that, but does not try to pull away.

Balthazar holds him until he falls asleep again, watching the moonbeam coming through the tent slit travel slowly across the ground, and prays to the ancestral spirits to keep Castiel's nightmares at bay.

* * *

Dean doesn't miss the fact that the Ravenlord emerges from his advisor's tent that morning instead of his own.

Which: innocuous enough, right? Maybe the Ravenlord just gets up early when he's traveling and went in to be advised. 

Except Dean's also seen how comfortably said advisor and Ravenlord move around each other, like they know exactly what to expect and when, and so: Dean's a little suspicious.

Suspicious. As in, _curious_ , not _jealous_. Right?

Right. Anyway: that morning Cas comes dragging out of Balthazar's tent instead of his own (and Dean quickly amends any theories about Castiel being prone to getting up early, because by every indication Cas is the antithesis of a morning person) and smiles blearily at Dean.

Dean forces himself not to ask, smiles back at him, instead. "Coffee?" He offers.

Castiel lights up at the prospect. " _Yes,_ " the Ravenlord says, with feeling, and Dean can't help but chuckle. They don't have coffee in the north, but Castiel has already fallen in love with the stuff: he swills it like it's the gateway to his own personal heaven.

If Dean left Cas alone with the camp's coffee stores, he's pretty sure what he'd get is a very awake raven and no coffee beans.

Cas is startlingly unadorned this morning, Dean realizes, as they trail towards where Jo and Sam have started a fire. No blue paint on his lips, only the earring that denotes his status hanging from his ear. His clothes are equally plain, with the exception of the gemstone permanently clasped at the Ravenlord's neck.

It's kind of weird to see, actually. Kind of like back when Sammy wore eye-glasses and then stopped after the west-mage healed his eyes; like a defining characteristic of his face has vanished.

Jo greets them sleepily as they approach with "Mornin'," which is echoed by Sam. Sam's feeding a small log into the fire while Jo stirs the coffee in the pot that hangs over it. "Sleep well?" she asks.

From anyone else, Dean is sure the question would be innocent. Except: this is Jo, who is also the head of his personal guard and his personal watch-woman, which is to say her job is to keep him alive, monitoring how well he's sleeping included.

He raises her eyebrows at her, which earns him an eyebrow-raise right back. Castiel, meanwhile, peers between them in confusion, and then seizes the moment to reach for one of the tin mugs piled to the side and filling it with coffee.

Dean's created a coffee-addicted raven, shit. He's not sure if he should be proud or concerned about his powers of corruption.

And: "I slept _fine_ , Jo. Why don't you go harangue Sammy about how many hours he got, instead?"

"She already did," Sam moans, and flops his long-limbed, ent-like self onto the nearest log, while Jo hands him coffee, too. (Sam is also not a morning person. Like, at all.) Castiel is already nursing his on the other end of the log, apparently significantly more interested in what's at the bottom of the mug than in the outside world.

"Mother hen," Dean complains. "I thought I was getting _away_ when I refused to let Ellen come with the delegation."

"Shut up," Jo says, grinning, and hands him his coffee.

Dean rolls his eyes and shuts up. He goes over to sit between Sammy and Cas, this being, he figures, his rightful place, and twists around to watch the camp wake.

There's at least two dozen tents set up in the clearing they've chosen, of various sizes; larger, more ornate ones for where Dean and Cas are staying, as is due to their positions, and lots of smaller ones for their respective entourages. Still more have been put up for cooking and storage, and the horses are tied on the far side, towards the creek that runs perpendicular to the road.

The camp is bustling, now, men and women from both sides doing the morning rounds: feeding and watering the horses, locating breakfast, sucking down as much coffee as the woman Jo put in charge of stores will allow.

Dean should probably thank Jo for wrestling this whole mess into shape (getting over fifty people doing anything together isn't an easy task, this he knows from experience) instead of complaining about her protective tendencies. She does have them, though, so he's sort of justified.

He turns back around to find sleepy blue eyes blinking owlishly at him, ruffled wings curving just over his shoulder. "Uh," he says, intelligently, _not_ because Cas's eyes are disturbingly pretty when he's still not quite awake, "mornin'."

"Good morning," Castiel says, seriously, like they haven't been sitting next to each other for some minutes. Cas does everything seriously.

His mug, Dean notes, is already empty, and Cas's gaze keeps sneaking back towards the pot. He snorts.

"Go on, man, you can get more."

"Thank you," the Ravenlord says, and rises immediately to pour himself more using the ladle Jo's left hooked on the pot's edge.

To Dean's left, Sam laughs and says, "Dean, you're a terrible influence."

"Or a shrewd negotiator," Jo points out, from where she's settled across from them, on a stump. No thought is yet being given to proper breakfast, which is being prepared half a camp away. "See, he's getting all the ravens addicted to the stuff, so he'll have _leverage_ when they go to the negotiating table."

Dean looks sideways at Cas, just to make sure that the he's not taking this too literally, as he tends to. Cas just resettles beside him and says, deadpan, "I suspect you could buy a kingdom in trade for it. I could be persuaded to allow you to annex our southernmost holdings."

It takes Dean about ten seconds to detect the flicker of wry amusement dancing in Castiel's eyes, and then the Ravenlord is actually _grinning_ at him. Dean hadn't realized he even had that much range of expression.

He lacks the self-control not to smile back, though, even while Jo cackles, "Wow, he really had you going there, for a minute."

"Shut up," he says again, which she counters with, "No, you shut up," and then they're engaged in a very mature, very kingly game of find-sticks-on-the-ground-to-fling-at-each-other.

Sam laughs and says, "Dean, are you _ten_ ," which only serves to drag him into the conflict as well, and then there's three adult humans sitting around this morning fire flinging twigs at each other, two of which are royal and one of which is the daughter of the second most powerful lord in the south.

Castiel, somehow, just manages to lean slightly out of the way and look perfectly regal as he downs his second mug of coffee, though Dean sees the smile he tries to hide behind the rim as he watches.

Eventually, though, someone comes by to inform them breakfast is ready, and Dean initiates a (perfectly legitimate) game of rock-paper-blade to decide who's going to go acquire it for them.

He then also perfectly legitimately _loses,_ because Sammy is an asshole with his "Always with trusty old rock, Dean!" and Dean sucks at rock-paper-blade as a rule, which makes using it to do anything a rather bad plan on his part.

Except where he's maybe kind of sort of counting on the way Cas immediately offers to go with him, standing up with a rustle of feathers. Dean says, "Yeah, come on," and sets off in the direction of the food.

He could probably navigate purely by using his nose, because whatever's being cooked smells _amazing_ —is that bacon?—and he weaves adeptly around people and tents and bedrolls and dogs and packs, eager.

It reminds him sharply of the trips to the other lords' holds that mom used to take them on, to observe what real negotiations looked like. What dad did, she'd said, was ham-fisted arguing, brawn over brains; real negotiation was about forming a connection with the other side, about seeing what they need as well as what you need, and finding a way to satisfy both (equally valid) desires.

Cas notices the way his mood dips a bit at the thought, apparently, because he hums, "You look sad, Dean," in way that makes it just enough of a question for Dean to answer if he wishes.

"Oh, uh," and Dean doesn't talk about his mom, much, because at home everyone knows exactly who Mary was and what she meant, and they avoid asking—avoid asking too much for his liking, really, because Mary _deserves_ to have people talking about her, about the things she did, about what she was like. Mary deserves to be remembered.

Which is probably why he ends up spilling it all to the head of another _nation_ , for fuck's sake, as they edge around a group of women strapping on armor and assorted weaponry. "I was just thinking—my mom, she was our chief negotiator. She'd go to all the other holds," ducking out of the way of a servant hauling a bag of feed towards the horses, "anytime there was a conflict of interest, which was often, let me tell you," and around another balancing two buckets of water from the stream, "and she'd take us with her, a lot of the time. To teach us, she said."

Castiel is not oblivious to the past tense; a glance at him reveals a gaze that's soft without being pitying or carefully avoiding, like everyone in the south seems wont to do. "She passed away," Dean says, needlessly, and then prudently avoids tramping through the remnants of someone's last night campfire.

"I am sorry for your loss, Dean Winchester," Castiel intones, solemnly, and Dean thinks that he actually is: like he gets it, gets the fact that Dean doesn't want people to tiptoe around the subject and pretend it didn't happen, gets that he thinks Mary's passing need be acknowledged instead of swept away to become history so soon after it's happened.

"Yeah," Dean says, blowing out a sigh, "me, too," and then they've found breakfast.

* * *

"I deliver breakfast upon thee," Dean announces as he arrives back at their fire with food-laden plates in hand, in the most royal of tones. Behind him, Sam sees Cas balancing equally full ones, though one of them has a distinct lack of bacon.

Some ravens practice vegetarianism, right. And because Sam is an anthropologist at heart, not a prince, he wonders how easy that is to practice in a land where crops likely often fail. Perhaps they accept the consumption of river fish, but not land mammals? He'll have to ask, later.

There's so much he wants to ask. He wishes he could have stayed behind in the north, to learn more about Cas's people, rather than traveling back home with Dean. It's not like they need him here, anyway; Sam's like an appendix to Dean's entourage. Vestigial. Unnecessary.

He doesn't dwell too bitterly on the subject, though, because Castiel hands him one of the plates, and if there's one thing Sam appreciates about traveling with Dean, it's that Dean has the best cook on the _continent_.

The four of them—Jo included—fall into a comfortable semi-silence for a while after that, filled mostly with the sounds of chewing and silverware scraping plates, with the occasional appreciative sound.

"We," Sam decides, once they've finished, "are going to die early deaths, courtesy of the camp cook."

"Then I'm gonna die happy," Dean proclaims, and flings a casual arm around Castiel's shoulders where he sits once more beside him. Sam notes the easy way Castiel seems to take the touch; none of the nervous untouchability that he exhibits around other humans, there.

He supposes it's because he and Dean spent so much time together in the north, however official their visit. And Cas had sat at Dean's beside for those two terrifying weeks, after the run-in with the soul-eater. Acclimatized, Sam decides.

The researcher in him has also catalogued all the ways the ravens communicate by touch and stance; subtle shifts of the way they hold their wings around each other, the overly-tactile way they'll touch each other's shoulders and arms to get each other's attention, the way they touch hands almost intimately in greeting.

The ravens don't do that with humans.

Cas does it with Dean, though.

Sam hopes that means good things for their future negotiations, except he also knows that it's never that easy. If anything, the real trouble is going to come from the other ten Lords of the South, with all their fractured holdings, barely kept from warfare with each other by the Dragonlord's rule.

"Cas," Sam says, then, because somehow he doesn't trust Dean to have told Cas everything he'll need to know, by now, and because Sam has a magnanimous nature, "Dean's told you about the Lords of the South, right?"

Castiel tilts his head, a little. Sam is fascinated by how bird-like these bird-people can really be; for all that they are nearer to humans than they are to actual beasts, their mannerisms are often anything but. "Some," Castiel says. "He has told me their names—the location of their holds." And: "He gave me a map."

Dean shifts uncomfortably beside him, hands pressing against the log as he stretches his legs out before him, the heels of his boots digging into the damp earth. "I thought I'd wait to tell him more," he admits, with a grimace.

"Dean, he needs to know," Sam says, and Jo makes a noise of agreement.

"You can't let him go into this blind," she says. "Mom alone would tear him apart. Not to mention Rufus, or Lord Vic–"

"Yeah, yeah, okay," Dean says. Castiel just looks with shrewd interest between the three of them. Sam thinks he's just slipped out of barely-awake-Cas mode and into Ravenlord, Protector of the North mode. It's a subtle change, but there: a squaring of the shoulders, a sharpening of the gaze.

"So, you know the names of the lords," Sam starts. "I guess we can start by telling you about Ellen, since Jo's her daughter." He gestures at her, and Castiel looks to her, as she is inherently the authority on the subject.

"Mom's . . ." Jo starts, and rubs her jaw, leaning forward with one arm braced against her knees. "She's intense, to say the least. She controls the largest chunk of the southlands. We've got some dragonriders, though not as many as many as the royal house, of course—" an inclination of the head towards Dean and Sam, "—and the holdings go right up to the edge of the mountains, so we have one of the most easily defensible positions in case of invasion or war."

"If the demons get that far," Dean says, and he's serious, too, now, entering that (rare, Sam thinks) state of mind where he actually acts like the king he is, "that's where we'll be making our stand and taking our people. They could lay siege to the mountain keeps for years and never make it past the walls."

"Of course, such a siege would require us to have the food stores to survive for a long period of time," Sam puts in. "Which is where Rufus' holdings come in. His lands are the northernmost of all the southlands—less desert than where our palace stands, and as such his greatest resource is agricultural."

"Yeah," Dean says, and Castiel is listening intently to all of them, absorbing information for future use. "Rufus is kind of an ornery fuck," _not so kingly, there, Dean,_ "but he—along with Ellen—is one of our family's closest supporters."

"There is internal tension regarding your leadership?" Castiel asks.

"Not exactly," Sam says, just as Dean says, "oh, yeah."

Sam scowls a little at his brother. Castiel raises his eyebrows, and Dean explains, "Some of the lords don't approve of my ascension to the throne, despite it being of the bloodline and me being old enough to take over from the Regent."

"Mostly these are the lords that followed dad," Sam says. "Dean didn't exactly—make a lot of friends, when he first took power." Another glare shot his way by Dean, but, well, he's telling it like it is.

"Dad made a lot of shit decisions," Dean says, bluntly. "I was fixing them."

"You could have been _diplomatic_ about it," Sam protests, "instead of just handing out verdicts—"

"I'm the fucking king, dammit," and Dean's slapping his knee in frustration, and this has the potential to spill over into an outright shouting match at any minute, except Jo raises her voice and says, pointedly,

" _Boys!_ You were telling Castiel about the lords?"

Sam thinks she sounds very like Ellen, then. He wonders if she'd be pleased or appalled.

Probably a little of both.

" _Right_ ," Dean says, and forcibly gets himself back on track. On his fingers, he tics off, "Ellen, Rufus. Next is Lord Victor—his greatest resource of his holdings are the mines. Gold, silver, you name it, they've got it, and they're mining it. Lord Vic is probably the richest; worth about infinitely more than we are, by dint of the royal family as a whole being in _debt_."

"To whom are you beholden?" Castiel asks, brows drawing together. "Are you not a united nation?"

"Uh, sort of," Dean says. "It's complicated. We'll get to that later, huh?" Castiel accepts this with a nod.

Folding down more fingers as he goes through the names. "Then there's Eve, Ruby, and Meg. Their lands all border bodies of water—the ocean to the east, the Bay of Orain, the sea to the south. Relatively wealthy—lots of trade. Most of the ships in our harbor were built by Eve's people; they're the biggest traders of them all. Keep finding people all 'round the world that we've never even heard of and bringing back treasures."

Castiel looks—fascinated, actually. "I've never seen a ship," he says, and Sam catalogues this as another facet of the ravens' way of life he didn't know about.

Jo is surprised. "Your people aren't seafaring? I thought, maybe the clans on the coast . . ."

Castiel shakes his head. "Our lands are our charge," he says, like that explains it. Chews his lip, then, a nervous tic Sam suspects he wouldn't allow himself if he were already fully made-up and painted for the day. "Moreover, we lack the infrastructure required for that sort of exchanges. We have no currency to determine and hold intermediate value; all the trading we do is done directly, need for need."

"Perhaps we could help you with that," Sam offers, cautiously. It's probably rude, to suggest it like it's something the ravens require, when they've clearly done well for themselves so far, but Castiel seems intelligent enough not take offense. "It might make starting up relations with our people easier, if the terms of trade are set for both sides."

"I fear my people might distrust the use of coin," Castiel murmurs, and the way his feathers rise a little as he says it make Sam think this is something he's argued (with himself?) many times before. "Nevertheless. Perhaps." Castiel opens his hand in a go-on gesture. "Tell me more of your lords?"

"Right," Dean says. "So, after those six, we're left with Lords Robert, Adam, Gordon, and Sarah."

"After Ellen, Lord Robert is our strongest supporter," Sam says. "Adam and Gordon are the most antagonistic. Lord Sarah is mostly a neutral party—her holding is one of the smaller ones, but strategically placed at the mouth of one of our major rivers, which is how she's managed to keep it despite being directly between the holdings of Adam and Gordon."

"Those two nearly went to war against each other three times under dad's rule," Dean says. "Mom and Sarah were all that kept 'em from doing so, and then only because mom was _really_ good at what she did."

"Yeah," Sam agrees. "If it had been up to dad—"

"If it had been up to the then-king," Jo says, "instead of eleven holdings the southlands would have nine, and at least two of the former ones would've been razed to the ground."

Castiel nods. This, Sam is sure he knows and believes: John's warlike mind, particularly after the passing of Mary, is more than well-known by the other kingdoms.

"The thing is," Dean goes on, "is that with eleven separate holdings—all of which have dragonriders, albeit no standing army, because that was outlawed years ago—tensions always tend to run pretty high. They're not fighting now, because everyone's too worried about the demon horde to be trying to kill each other," _small mercies,_ Sam thinks, "but there's still schisms and old feuds, and lords that would rather see the royal house fall. Most of those would probably like to be on the throne themselves."

Under his breath, Dean adds, "Can't fathom why," and Sam can only agree.

"Yet your family has managed to maintain power," Castiel observes. "An impressive feat."

"We're not the dragonlords for nothin', Cas," Dean says. "Our family has the most dragonriders of the lot, and, unlike the lesser lords, we keep a huge standing army. Anyone trying to go against us would have to get their forces together, first."

"Unfortunately, as Dean's already pointed out," Sam sighs, "we're also hard-pressed for resources, much of the time. Things really started to go to hell, when John was in charge after Mary's death."

"As a result," Jo says, "what with people like Rufus and Gordon and Ruby having far more gold on their hands, they could potentially get up mercenary and militia coalitions far easier than we could maintain and enlarge our own forces."

Castiel's brow is still furrowed. He's leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, now, fingers knit under his chin. "What an untenable position," he rumbles. "One gets the impression that were it not for the encroaching enemy forces uniting you all under one banner, you would have all annihilated each other long ago."

"Somethin' like that, yeah," Dean grunts. "And people actually want my job, can you believe that? Fuck me. I don't even want to think about the aftermath, if we manage to survive this."

"Don't strain yourself with all that _thinking,_ Dean," Jo jabs, smirking, and there go all their serious deliberations.

Sam watches them bicker and thinks about what this must look like to Cas: a nation so tense it ought to have fractured already, all their alliances only there at all because the dragonlords once saved all of them from destruction. It seems to Sam sometimes that the only way the southlands have ever managed to stand together is when they've had a common enemy.

The ravens, Sam has gathered from his stay, are far more peaceful than that. Strange, that they can have so many highly-trained warriors—warriors that use _magic_ , no less, the kind of magic that could probably level mountains, when utilized by many at once—and yet no warfare.

When they'd met the clan leaders, they had stood united at Castiel's back, and each had bowed to Castiel and then Dean in turn.

Castiel had bowed back. Sam had thought it a very poignant exchange.

Dean slaps his knee again, decisive rather than frustrated, this time, and says, "All right! Let's strike camp and get movin', huh? Sun's already up. We shoulda been on the road a half an hour ago."

They stand in unison, three humans and a raven, and Sam hopes that that can be taken as a sign, too: that their people will stand together, when the time comes, and survive the menace in the East.

* * *

Castiel does not mind riding as an activity, in and of itself, though it is new to him. Riding another creature when he has wings of his own seems a strange way to move, but it makes sense that the humans would use them, lacking such useful appendages themselves.

No, what Castiel minds is the _heat._

Even here, still far to the north of the border to the southlands, it is already oppressive: dry and stifling, feeling so thick that it sometimes feels to Castiel as though he can't breathe.

He's shed as many layers as he can, down to a loose dark tunic—usually worn under a robe and a cloak and a _fur_ , for the spirits' sake—but it still doesn't feel like enough, under the circumstances.

He fantasizes momentarily about riding in a greater state of undress, but tramps down the idea. He keeps his wings held out from his body; he's always liked their black sheen in the past, but here, in the glare of the southern sun, they're overheated, just more sources of warmth that he doesn't want.

Castiel wonders, acidly, how much it would scare the horses if he bolted into the sky right then and there.

Balthazar rides up beside him just as he's considering leaving his horse with one of the other ravens and taking to the sky for a short flight, and says, as though he can read minds, "Considering escaping this dreadful earthly existence, Cassie?"

"Balthazar," Castiel says, evenly, "it is so hot here that I think if I stay near the ground any longer I am going to _die_." Potentially by drowning in his own sweat, and isn't that a wholly undignified way for a Ravenlord to go.

Spirits save him, he hates the south already. The thought of conducting negotiations in a room with this haze unbroken even by a light breeze—he doesn't even want to think about it.

Balthazar just chuckles. "Come on, then," he says. "Samandriel can keep an eye on the horses." He jerks his head in a nod upwards. "Shall we?"

"Yes," Castiel says, "yes, let's," and reigns in his horse before sliding off it. The entourage keeps moving around them as Castiel leads the mare towards where Samandriel awaits them to the side of the road, out of the way of the other riders and carts.

"I'll take good care of them for you," Samandriel assures them both—eagerly—and Castiel can't suppress a noise of amusement when Balthazar leans in close to whisper in his ear, "A definite case of hero worship, Cassie."

He pushes Balthazar away, as much in an unserious gesture of derision as because it is too hot to be so near anyone. "I am hardly deserving of that," he tells him, and shakes his head. "He'll learn." And then he steps off the road entirely, onto the grass, and shakes out his cramped wings.

"I'll race you to the front of the convoy," Balthazar jokes.

Castiel gets the impression Balthazar doesn't expect him to take him up on his offer. _You're too stiff, Cassie, he's told him in the past,_ and _you need to let yourself do something fun, once in a while. Something that doesn't involve drawing up plans and making trade agreements._

He decides he's overdue for surprising Balthazar.

"Very well," he says, blandly, flares open his wings, and launches himself into the sky before Balthazar can even open his mouth to protest.

He's gaining altitude, powerful beats of his wings, fighting the initial drag before he finds a passable air current, by the time Balthazar gets off the ground. "Cheating, Cassie!" he shouts after him. "I didn't know you had it in you!"

Castiel just smirks to himself, satisfied, and hauls himself higher, until the horses and people are all in miniature, and he's found a wind to buoy him in stable flight, swooping ahead towards the front of the column of riders.

He wonders, abruptly, where Dean rides in the column, and if he's spotted Castiel above him.

Wonders if Dean would appreciate the grace with which Castiel's been told he flies.

Which is when he spots him down below—just looking up, Sam pointing up at Castiel beside him—and when Balthazar catches up to him and dives past, crooning, "You never were good at keeping your mind on races, Cassie."

Any other time, Castiel would ignore the challenge, but he's suddenly seized with an irrational need to beat Balthazar at this, particularly with the humans (with Dean, if he's being quite honest) watching.

He snaps his wings again and shoots forward, twisting to give himself a more aerodynamic swoop. Balthazar is—metaphorically speaking—left behind in the dust.

Castiel makes it to the head of the column first. He also _almost_ makes the careful landing he wants, though really, with Balthazar behind him, he doesn't know why he expected anything better than a flying tackle into the grass.

When they're both piled against the grass, wings and limbs tangled together—and he’s _hot_ again, _already,_ so Castiel pushes him off and rolls away—and Balthazar is laughing, he says, "I think you are an extremely bad influence upon me."

"I'm a fantastic influence," Balthazar says, standing, and helps him back to his feet.

Which is when Castiel glances over his shoulder and sees Dean approaching them atop his white stallion at a trot, and feels a wave of heat that has absolutely nothing to do with the southern climate.

"You've got grass in your hair," Balthazar tells him, sounding entirely too pleased with himself—and entirely too aware of Castiel's reaction to Dean. "What will the king think of you now, hitting the ground at that speed and ending up with so much of it on your person?"

Castiel scrubs a hand through his hair and growls, without malice, "An awful influence. I should never have allowed Rachel to assign you to to my entourage."

"You know you love me," Balthazar smirks, and heads back towards where Samandriel has their horses.

Castiel stays and walks to meet Dean half-way on the road. At least, he thinks, in this heat no one will be able to tell if he's blushing.

* * *

Dean is debating the questionable merits of the rumored Pleasurehouses of Samira—the central city in Meg's holdings—with Jo when Sam points up and alerts him to Castiel in air above them.

Which of course sends his very earnest efforts not to think about Castiel down the gully and into the creek, as one might say, because he's thought since the first time he saw it that Cas looks incredible when he flies.

The effect is only slightly spoiled by the fact that the raven flying after him ends up tackling Cas bodily to the ground, though it makes Dean grin a little to see Cas do anything so spontaneous and not-at-all-regal as tumbling through grass with his feathers askew.

There's still grass clinging to Cas's hair and tunic when Dean rides ahead to meet him, and he reaches out to brush it out, unthinkingly, which makes Cas blink but doesn't elicit any other response. "What was that?" he asks the Ravenlord, grinning.

"It was hot," Castiel says, like that explains everything. "It _is_ hot. Dean, I don't know how you survive this day-to-day."

"Tell you what," Dean says, and halts his horse. The column is a ways behind them now, anyway. "Hold still."

Castiel does, and watches a touch glassily as Dean detaches his water skin from his belt. He lifts it, and offers, "Close your eyes?"

Cas raises a skeptical eyebrow at the water skin, but acquiesces, and closes his eyes while Dean dumps the contents out over his head and shoulders.

He looks a little shocked, initially, but the sound he emits as the water runs through his hair and down his back is blissful. "That," Castiel admits, "is much better. Thank you."

He also looks very drowned-rat, as a result, which just serves to make Dean smile more. "Come on, Cas," he says. "Get your horse and come ride up front with me. When the heat gets bad you just gotta find distractions, and there's not a whole lot of 'em on the road when you're surrounded by nothin' but riders and carts."

"Do you always ride ahead of your people, then?" Castiel asks.

"Oh, no." And Dean grins with all the pride and smarm he's got in him, this time. "Usually, I _fly_ ahead."

* * *

Dean tells him all about his dragon as they ride. He waxes poetic about her, in fact, describing the sheen of her scales and her red eyes and the gold that runs along her wings and down her back. Castiel's half in love with the beast himself when Dean finishes, and Sam—again riding beside them, along with Jo, because this road is more than wide enough to accommodate four riding abreast, even with Cas's wings taking up space—is saying, "Yeah, but you haven't met Amonet."

"Amonet?" Castiel asks.

"Sammy's little red runt of a dragon," Dean says, affectionately.

"She is not a _runt,_ " Sam insists, immediately defensive. "She comes from a smaller breed! And I'll have you know she's very smart."

"Hey, Impala isn't stupid."

"Amonet never burned down a stable by accident."

"Operative words being 'by accident', Sammy!"

"Neither of your dragons," Jo says, from Castiel's right, "matches up to Heru'ur."

Both Sam and Dean snort derisively, this time, and Castiel decides it must be traditional to bicker about the merits of one's dragons as set against those of others.

He wonders what it'll be like to meet one. He's never seen one, even at a distance—there's a lot of reasons the dragonlords didn't bring their great great lizards with them when they went north, chief among them being that it's not generally a good move to bring massive, fire-breathing beasts to peace-talks.

Dean pulls him out of imagining leathery, wings and scaled reptiles several stories tall with, "Anyway, your people keep those—what did you call them? Fey spirits?"

Castiel nods. The fey come in many forms, but all of them share the characteristics of being small and partly-ethereal—always attached to the magical plane. Castiel hasn't had one since he was a child, but he remembers it well: his had been in the form of a serpent in miniature, and had slithered noiselessly through the air as though swimming.

It had glowed violet in the dark. He'd slept with it coiled up beside him for years, the walls of his chambers cast a faint purple to match.

Aloud, he says, "They are native to our forests. They keep to the deeper parts, mostly, but when one comes across them they become attached easily—a gesture of kindness, or an offer of food," he doesn't explain that they feed on magic, and that's how the ravens attract and keep them, "and they'll follow one for the rest of one's natural life."

"Huh," Dean says, and, "Cool," Sam agrees.

Jo says, "I'd wondered! Rachel showed me these glowing yellow ones that wandered around in a group by one of your temples." Jo and Rachel had spent a lot of time together in the north, Castiel remembers; Rachel had seemed to like her a great deal, and Castiel isn't surprised, for Jo is very easy to like.

"Our temples attract ones that enjoy open magical flames," Castiel tells her. "All the braziers within the temples are lit by our mages, so that they may burn through the day without need of kindling."

"You tellin' me we could've had magic undying fires in our camps this whole time?" Dean asks, incredulous. "Next time we stop, man, you gotta make us one."

"I did not think," Castiel says, "that you would appreciate superheated blue flame when it came to cooking and warmth."

"Oh," Dean says. "Okay, maybe not."

"Definitely not," Sam says, " _Dean,_ you could set this whole forest on fire."

Dean grumbles about having a dragon that can set forests on fire and not doing so in the past fifteen years. Sam punches him in the shoulder.

Jo rolls her eyes empathically at Cas over their shoulders, which makes him smile, too.

Castiel hasn't smiled this much in a long time. Ridiculous, considering that he's riding to hostile territory to conduct the first talks his people have had with humans in generations of _ravens,_ shorter human lifespans aside.

He doesn't stop smiling, though, because Dean glows with happiness when he's engaged in play-fighting with his sibling.

The aura Castiel sees through his magical senses almost creeps past the edges of Dean's being, at times like these—for all that Dean hasn't an ounce of magic and can't extend himself past his flesh and blood form.

Castiel thinks him terribly beautiful, and bites his tongue to make sure he never tells Dean so.


End file.
